A variety of rock bolters have been developed which employ a common feed shell. U.S. Pat. No. 4,158,520, U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,559, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,114,279 teach the use of a common feed shell. However, none of these patents employ a single element for stabilizing the feed shell which also serves as both a centralizer for a drill steel and a centralizer for other operations associated with bolt setting.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,559 also teaches a cylindrical bolt magazine where the bolts traverse a path such that the bolts can be tangentially removed from the magazine. While such design simplifies bolt setting, the cylindrical shape limits the number of bolts that can be practically employed.
Thus, there is a need for a rock bolter that will better facilitate maintaining alignment between the bolt hole and the bolt to be placed therein and provide a simplified bolt delivery system with greater bolt capacity.